


the winds of heaven

by orphan_account



Series: legend!verse [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, castiel is a god but he's also a bees' rights activist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 14:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2313527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas doesn't draw runes anymore. He doesn't listen to Dean's walls. Lightbulbs don't glow brighter when he walks into a room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the winds of heaven

**Author's Note:**

> i am so sorry this took me so long, i am total trash, i know. a more well-written update is on its way, i swear.

Cas doesn't draw runes anymore. He doesn't listen to Dean's walls. Lightbulbs don't glow brighter when he walks into a room.

But he doesn't talk about it, so Dean doesn't bring it up.

It's just, when he isn't watering his plants or breaking coffeemakers or watching fish, he seems kind of– empty. Dean hopes it's not him, hopes it's not Earth draining his grace, but the fact of the matter is that it probably is. And what's worse, Dean can't do a single goddamn thing about it. There's a word for the feeling, probably. Like now, for example. He catches this sag in Cas's shoulders out of the corner of his eye, and he can feel it, that soul-exhausting, weight-of-the-world sadness, floating gently off Cas's aura in waves like it's somehow weightless, like it somehow isn't dragging him slowly downwards. It hurts. It's hurting Cas and it hurts Dean, too. Nothing has been bright in a long time. That always hurts.

"Hey," Dean says, awkwardly, because he's tragically fucking tactless, "turn that frown upside-down."

Cas gives him this look, like he's drawing a total blank.

"A smile," Dean explains, and fuck,  _fuck_. "A– you know, you turn your– upside-down? Frown? I'm– forget it."

"You're telling me to smile," Cas says, like some kind of android who doesn't know what that entails, exactly. Jesus.

"Yeah. Yes. What's the matter, you can't think of anything to smile about?"

He says it as a joke, he swears he does. But then he remembers that Cas is losing his magic and he digs his fingernails into his palm hard enough to leave a mark and thinks,  _shit._ This is where he fucks everything up again. He doesn't know where to hit people hard, where to cut them deepest. He just always ends up landing there. _  
_

Castiel shakes his head, but then, hey, hallelujah, there's the ticket, a tiny little smile teases at his mouth and his eyes go all soft and shiny. Dean's probably going to keel over and die, or something. "Oh, no," he says, quietly. "I have plenty to smile about. So much so that it is almost overwhelming." He's looking at Dean like there are stars shining out of every one of his pores.

_Like the sun, it hurt to look at you._

Dean hears the words echo loud, like a ringing in his ears. They echo into his bones and settle there and the rest of him drifts upwards and away. Towards upstairs, towards wherever the sun is right now, hidden behind an overcast sky. Oh. Oh- oh God.

"Yeah?" he whispers, and his heart is beating too fast, pitching a revolt against this conversation. "Like what?"

"Earth," Cas answers. His eyes are open wide, honest. "And goldfish. Cilantro. And you. You the most."

"Me, huh," Dean says, wonderingly. He can't feel his fingers and half his brain shuts off and everything is sort of bright. "Go figure." And then, because Cas is still giving him that shy smile and everything is better in this exact moment, Dean leans forward and kisses him. Restrained, and very soft. Like nothing else in his life has ever been. The change is unexpected. It's a good sort of feeling. "I'm glad," he whispers, finally, and can feel it when Castiel smiles.

"Me too," Cas says, and isn't that some kind of miracle.

—

Cas starts sleeping more and more often. Dean worries about it, because he's a chronic worrier, because he doesn't think he can explain dreams again, how they can hurt and leave you empty. He didn't mention that the first time around.

He's making himself breakfast early one Friday morning when Cas walks out of Dean's room, wearing Dean's clothes (he's not getting over that any time soon) and says, sleepily, "Anael is here."

"What?"

"Hello," says a voice from behind him, and Dean jumps six inches and orange juice goes spraying everywhere. The goddess gives him a thoroughly flat look, then blinks several times. "I'm here to ask for a favor, Dean," she says. "Though I fully understand if you don't want to accommodate me."

Dean gives her a wary look, brushing several spells against his shirt to get the last of the orange juice out of it. Damn. "Alright." He owes her one, anyway.

"I would like to stay in your realm," she says, inclining her head towards Cas. "With my brother. I was wondering if you could give me some help with that."

"Well," Dean starts, and chances a quick look at Cas. "Help is what I'm here for, I guess." He allows himself a grin. "'Specially on Fridays."

Anael nods.

Castiel hums, off-tune, and waters his plants. He's smiling. He remembers.

The clock above the microwave reads 7:09am.

—

"No way," Ruby says. They're all gathered around the screen. Ruby keeps clicking on the big green 93% button, like it's going to  _change,_ like somehow Anael, quite possibly the most powerful deity they've ever dealt with, is not almost perfectly compatible with her. "No way," she says again, and turns to Dean. "I definitely did not sign up for this."

"Well, if you want to get technical," he points out, "then you kind of did."

"I'm not playing babysitter to some Secondary who could probably kill me if she looked at me wrong," Ruby insists, stubbornly. "I'm a  _receptionist._ Says so right here on my fancy-ass name plate. Plus, I have things to do."

"Like what?" Jo asks, innocently.

"I don't know." Ruby waves her hands. " _Things._ " Jo smirks.

"I'll give you a raise," Dean offers.

Ruby glances at the screen, then at Anael, who's sitting a few feet away with her hands folded in her lap, smiling confusedly at all of them. "Fine," she says, then points threateningly at the goddess. "Do not kill me," Ruby tells her. "Being dead does not fit into my busy social schedule."

"Duly noted," says Anael, and Castiel beams.

—

Cas falls asleep curled up halfway on Dean's lap one evening. Anael is sitting in the armchair next to the couch, and smiles.

"What?"

Her smile grows, slightly. There's a long pause. "Did you know," she says, instead of answering, "that a Secondary's grace is kind of like their soul?"

Dean shakes his head.

"The problem is, obviously, that grace is essentially magic, and magic is incapable of having any moral or emotional inclination. So the analogy to a soul is a little bit– wrong." Anael does not take her eyes of Cas. "Except, in Castiel's case, his grace– his magic, it's– he's the only one of us who feels."

Dean blinks. "I'm sorry, I don't–"

"He loves you," she says, softly, and Dean cannot hear this, he absolutely can't, this is, this is not something he's– shit, he can't, he really can't. "He loves you. Most gods full of grace couldn't do that. Castiel's grace is different. He has always been earthbound. I don't know why. But I know– I want that, too." She takes a deep breath. "Which is why I'm going to offer to heal him. If I expend my energy, I can restore his. And I mean  _his._ His soul, sort of."

"What if you don't like being human?"

Anael is really smiling, now. "It'll still be worth it," she says. "For the look on his face."

Dean exhales, thinks about that, thinks about the word  _earthbound_. Silently agrees. "Don't you think this is the kind of thing you should be asking Cas?" Cas shifts his head towards Dean's stomach, makes this muffled little  _pfft_ sound against Dean's t-shirt in his sleep. Maybe it's just his imagination, but he the lights in the room glow a little brighter. _  
_

"I already did. He said to ask you if you were okay with that."

And then it all comes out, in one shaky, breathless laugh. Of course he's okay, of course he's okay.

"Of course," he says.

And he feels it, in the air, maybe, because he's the worst kind of sap. Everything starts piecing itself together again.

—

Castiel is a bees' rights activist.

Dean's first evidence of the fact is that suddenly, one morning, there is a Save the Bees poster in the break room, one that he did not put there and one that was certainly not there yesterday. Not that he doesn't care about bees, but, you know. He confronts Cas about it after lunch.

"Did you put that bee poster up, Cas?"

"Mm. Yes."

"Mind me asking where you even got that thing?"

"Hannah, from the grocery store," Cas replies, promptly. He stands up on his tiptoes to kiss Dean's forehead. What a fucking dweeb. "I love bees," Cas says, very seriously.

"I love  _you,_ " Dean blurts out, because he can, because it's true. He can't remember if he's ever said this to Cas explicitly before; he figures he must've. It's just, it's because, out of all the creatures on Earth to devote your full love and appreciation towards, Cas picked  _bees._ Cas will never stop growing cilantro, Cas made Dean pull over on the side of the road and spent fifteen minutes guiding all the deer away from the highway, Cas steals all the blankets and yet his feet are always freezing as hell. Dean loves him so goddamn much. For that and for a lot of other things and then for something else that nobody's invented words for yet. They should get right on that, Dean thinks.

Cas's whole face lights up, and so does the room. Even the digital clock's numbers glow with a little more spirit. "That's good," he says. "I love you too."


End file.
